"Internet users worried about their personal information being intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies should stop using websites that send data to the United States, Germany's top security official said Wednesday." Cute, but pointless. France does it too, as does the UK. Documents from the Dutch intelligence agencies indicate that they, too, are involved in mass surveillance, the extent of which will supposedly be investigated by parliament.

1. use strong encryption
2. don't use algorithms recommended by NSA such as AES
3. use cascading encryption, if one algorithm is broken, you are still safe
4. use TOR
5. use encrypted mail services such as tormail.org and the upcoming startmail.com
6. don't use IE, Chrome, Safari. Use FF, Opera, Srware Iron
7. don't use services provided by Google, FB, MS and other big players, there are open source alternatives like identi.ca for social networking
8. use search engines such as startpage.com and ixquick.com which is google with privacy added
9. keep in mind that Windows and Os X most likely have backdoors and Linux and BSDs can have have subtle backdoors
10. don't rely on SSL or TLS, they can obtain certificates and MTM you
11. ???
12. Profit!